Suit over how to grade students pits districts against Texas

School districts to tangle with state over gradingNew law requiring accuracy on report cards prompts lawsuit

ERICKA MELLON, HOUSTON CHRONICLE

Published
5:30 am CDT, Monday, April 26, 2010

Eleven Texas school districts will ask an Austin judge today if they can keep cutting a break to students who badly fail courses despite a new law mandating truthful grading.

The districts — most are in the Houston area — are suing state Education Commissioner Robert Scott over his interpretation of the bill, which he says requires schools to give students accurate grades on their report cards. The districts maintain they can keep their policies that set minimum failing grades — typically a 50 — even if students deserved lower.

In their lawsuit, the districts argue that the statute, which took effect this school year, applies only to class assignments, not to semester or six- or nine-week grades on report cards.

The law does not mention report card grades, but the bill's author, Sen. Jane Nelson, R-Flower Mound, has said she intended it to cover all types of grades.

The Fort Bend, Aldine, Klein, Alief, Anahuac and Clear Creek school districts filed the lawsuit in November, with Humble, Deer Park, Eanes, Dickinson and Livingston joining later. At today's hearing, they are seeking a temporary injunction to keep Scott from voiding their minimum grading policies.

Scott, who is being represented by the Texas Attorney General's office, is asking civil state District Judge Gisela Triana-Doyal to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing in part that he doesn't have the power to enforce the grading law and that there's not a specific student's case in dispute.

Minimum-grading policies, according to the school districts, are part of a strategy to prevent dropouts because they give students a mathematical shot at passing a course — if they earn high enough marks in other grading periods. For example, a student who received a 30 grade for the first six weeks but passed the next five grading periods with 75s, still would fail the course, with a 68. But if the school gave the student a 50, instead of a 30, the cumulative grade would be passing.

“We're not giving passing grades. A 50 is way below failing,” Alief school board member Sarah Winkler said in defense of her district's policy. “All we're doing is giving them a grade that if they put forth significant effort they would be able to pass. What would be the point of a student making any effort if they cannot pass?”

Scott, in his response to the lawsuit, characterizes the districts' claims as illogical.

“Under the districts' interpretation, a student could complete no assignments and still get a 50 on his or her report card,” the response says. “This interpretation would render the entire statute meaningless ... and there would be no purpose to requiring actual grades on assignments and examinations.”

The districts are being represented by David Feldman, a private lawyer who was recently appointed Houston city attorney.